You may have seen recent advertisements or emails from Augustine Temperature Management, a 3M competitor that has worked with plaintiffs’ lawyers to attack 3M and its health-care provider partners. The advertisement continues a pattern of attacks by Augustine Temperature Management on the 3M™ Bair Hugger™ warming system.
It is important to understand that Augustine Temperature Management is the principal architect of the litigation against 3M and the Bair Hugger system. Augustine worked with key plaintiffs’ lawyers to develop the first lawsuits against 3M, drafted a litigation guide to assist lawyers in finding prospective clients and financially supported the research now relied upon by plaintiffs’ attorneys.
Every lawsuit filed to date relies on studies supported by Augustine, and every one of the Augustine-promoted studies acknowledges that there is no proof the Bair Hugger system causes infections.
In short, you should not trust communications from Augustine. His activity regarding the 3M Bair Hugger system is not rooted in facts.
The latest advertising/email blast quotes an “expert’’ named Dr. Yadin David, who is working for plaintiffs’ lawyers. Dr. David has not even been recognized by the federal court as being competent to serve as a witness, yet Augustine is trumpeting his “findings,’’ which simply reiterate the claims made in the handful of studies promoted by Augustine. It’s noteworthy that a federal court in 2013 excluded Dr. David from testifying as an expert in another case.
Here are important facts to remember
A large number of studies continue to recommend patient warming, which has been shown to provide valuable benefits to surgical patients, including reducing the risk of surgical site infections, reduced mortality, fewer post-operative heart attacks, reduced blood loss and faster recovery times. A compendium of studies can be found here.
Evidence uncovered during this litigation shows that Augustine Temperature Management attempted several times to show that use of the Bair Hugger warming system resulted in a higher level of bacteria in the surgical area. NONE of those attempts were successful; in each instance, the Bair Hugger warming system DID NOT result in higher levels of bacteria.
Testimony in the litigation also reveals that key researchers working with Augustine continue to use the Bair Hugger warming system in their facilities. One of those key researchers, Dr. Michael Reed, said in deposition testimony that he stopped using the Hot Dog system in early 2016. He said “we had some difficulties with them beginning to bubble and sort of melt; ‘melt’ is an over-exaggeration, but they began to bubble along the seams and we were anxious that the patient was going to get injured. So we stopped using them, we pulled them.’’
The Bair Hugger warming system has been used more than 200 million times in the past 30 years and continues to be used thousands of times each day. Relatively speaking, these lawsuits represent an infinitesimal fraction of the people who have been treated with Bair Hugger warming therapy.
3M is vigorously defending the Bair Hugger system in this litigation. While the company is sympathetic to patients who experience surgical site infections, there is no proof – nor any indication – that the Bair Hugger warming system caused these infections.
We intend to prove that in court.
The Bair Hugger system is a safe and effective method of keeping patients warm before, during and after surgery.